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Groton, the Electric Boat Co. sealed off a special section of their yard and nicknamed it "Siberia." There, in guarded isolation, the Navy's shipbuilders and scientists started putting together a wooden mock-up of the atomic sub.
A fortnight ago, it became known that the old submarine Ulua was being towed to a New England port for use in underwater explosion tests. The Ulua is a vital part of Captain Rickover's project. She was to be fitted with a dummy atomic engine, sent underwater without crew, and depth-charged to see how much shock an atomic engine can stand. The information will be used to modify and correct the full-scale atomic submarine that the Electric Boat Co. has been ordered to build.
Shark's Fins & Joysticks. In appearance, the Navy's first SSN (Submarine Nuclear) will look much like an ordinary Tang-class sub (TIME, July 9), only bigger and chubbier. It will have the same streamlined gun-free deck, the same sharklike fin rising in the center to house its radar, periscope and snorkel (which is a convenience, not a necessity, on an atomic submarine). Inside, the SSN will open up an entirely new world to sailormen accustomed to the smelly, cramped interiors of standard subs. It will have its own oxygen supply and a special carbon dioxide removing room to freshen the air its crew breathes. There will be vast space for the complex array of dials and electronic gadgets, huge torpedo rooms to hold a school of homing torpedos. The familiar throbbing diesel engines will be gone. Instead, a single atom-powered steam turbine will drive it swiftly and silently at great depth.
Underwater, in its natural element, the atomic sub will have a destroyer's speed: 25 knots for steady cruising, 30 or 35 knots in emergencies. Her skipper will have an airplane's joystick to maneuver his craft in steep turns and dives, "fly" it like a fighter pilot in fast attack runs. Since the SSN's atomic engine needs no telltale snorkel to suck down air, it can travel deep underwater indefinitely. Its cruising range will be limited only by the ability of its crew to stand the tedium of days or weeks underwater.
"The atomic sub," said one high-ranking Navy officer, "would make all surface craft obsolete." In war, a fleet of them could sweep the seas clean of enemy shipping, lie off enemy coastlines lobbing guided atomic missiles into his ports and industrial centers. The new sub also has an important defensive mission; nothing frightens a submarine commander more than the thought of another sub _ silently stalking him underwater. With its high speed and unlimited endurance, the atomic sub, say Navy submariners, can track down and kill enemy subs more efficiently than any other weapons in the Navy's arsenal.
In Tokyo early this summer, Admiral Sherman announced that the atomic sub will be ready for war within "two or three years." Last week, after five years of work, the word from Captain Rickover's scientists was that it may be ready a lot sooner than that.